Thinking Through It

Thinking Through It

Share this post

Thinking Through It
Thinking Through It
Is Anyone Born to Be Married? : One Parent, One Decision

Is Anyone Born to Be Married? : One Parent, One Decision

I knew I was too controlling to marry!

Alejandro Betancourt's avatar
Alejandro Betancourt
Oct 22, 2021
∙ Paid

Share this post

Thinking Through It
Thinking Through It
Is Anyone Born to Be Married? : One Parent, One Decision
Share

I knew I was too controlling to marry!

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop reading one morning when it hit me all at once. It was getting close to the age I had chosen to become a parent, but there was no way I could do this with someone else. I’m just too controlling to marry, and this started making me feel pretty anxious.

Luckily, I had an epiphany that made everything seem OK again. There are other ways of becoming a parent besides having children with another person! I didn’t have to be married; there were different ways. Parenthood was still possible for me even though it felt like everything only served as a reminder that I wasn’t where all my friends were at with their families.

I wanted to be a parent, but I was not born to be married. Is anyone? Maybe some. I couldn’t bear the thought of having someone by my side making all these critical decisions about my children with me. What if we disagreed on the most important things? Their edu…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Thinking Through It to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Alejandro Betancourt
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share